Sciences of Antiquity

Romantic Antiquarianism, Natural History, and Knowledge Work

Noah Heringman

Description

In the course of the eighteenth century, discoveries ranging from Tahiti to Pompeii initiated a scientific turn in the study of the past. Seeking a formal language to display these new findings, Romantic-era plate books presented a wide array of objects as ancient relics. This proliferation of antiquities, a product of old affinities between natural history and antiquarianism, provided new material for the formation of archaeology, geology, anthropology, and other modern disciplines.

Sciences of Antiquity traces the production of five scholarly plate books on subjects of major literary and scientific interest at the time: South Pacific voyaging, Mount Vesuvius, ancient Greek vases, monuments in English cathedrals, and the geology of southeast England.
Focusing on illustrators, fieldworkers, and ghostwriters associated with this type of scholarly publication, Heringman explores how the expertise acquired by these largely self-educated intellectuals precipitated a major shift in the way research was done - from patronage to professionalism. Their scholarship and technical skills demanded recognition, sparking conflicts over the division of labour and the role of institutions such as the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries. Ambitious, collaborative plate books, such as The Collection of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman Antiquities (1776) and Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain (1799), forged a broader and deeper perception of antiquity as extending far beyond the Greco-Roman world.

Sciences of Antiquity

Romantic Antiquarianism, Natural History, and Knowledge Work

Noah Heringman

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Contents List of Figures Abbreviations Introduction: Knowledge Work and the Proliferation of Antiquities Natural History and Antiquity 1. Beyond Patronage: Knowledge Work, Professional Ambition, and the Competing Narratives of the Endeavour Voyage2. Campi Phlegraei and the Neapolitan Pursuit of "Most Remote Antiquity"Greek Vases and Deep Time in Naples 3. Baron d'Hancarville, Sir William Hamilton, and the Collaborative Production of Antiquities4. The Natural History of Art: Customs and Manners in The Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities5. "Their History, Written By Themselves": Ancient Religion, Deep Time, and Embedded HistoryEngland's Ruins Interlude: Classical toGothic 6. Antiquarianism and the Science of Preservation: Jacob Schnebbelie, Richard Gough, and Gothic Antiquity7. "The Whole of This Coast Is Composed of Ruins": Thomas Webster's Fieldwork on the Isle of WightConclusion Bibliography Index

Sciences of Antiquity

Romantic Antiquarianism, Natural History, and Knowledge Work

Noah Heringman

Author Information

Noah Heringman is Associate Professor of English at the University of Missouri. His previous books include Romantic Rocks, Aesthetic Geology (2004) and Romantic Science: The Literary Forms of Natural History (2003). He has published articles and chapters on Romantic poets, on the history of geology, and on Romanticism and the disciplines.

Sciences of Antiquity

Romantic Antiquarianism, Natural History, and Knowledge Work

Noah Heringman

Reviews and Awards

"Heringman seeks to reclaim antiquarianism and its objects as precursors to and generative sources of modern knowledge production in its earliest iterations of professionalism. Erudite, comprehensive, and meticulously documented." -H. Doss, Wilbur Wright College, City Colleges of Chicago, CHOICE